WOODEN BANDSAW - PDF

[J T]

you don't ask the right questions, the answers don't matter.

- W.S. Lind

[Frank Campbell]

brother-in-laws dad for a project I was doing. He did a nice job building it, worked great. He built it to finish a thirty foot sailboat from a wooden hull he bought, sold that boat after a few years and then did a forty foot fiberglass one with it as well.

[sailor]

The first band saw I used was a wooden one my Grandfather made. The wheels were made out of a pair of Soap Box Derby wheels.

[Father Haskell]

plywood discs? A stripped bike would probably yield all the parts needed for a multi-speed bandsaw except for blade.

Google turns up nothing for "walking beam saw."

[sailor]

The Soap Box Derby wheels Grampa had, had solid rubber tires, that tapered in to the tread area, for low rolling resistance. He somehow shaved the tires down so the tread area got wider. About 1" as I remember. It was 45 years ago! The wheel itself was solid sided. The bearings were about 4" apart. The wheel sides tapered from the bearing area to the tire area.

I used the other 2 wheels and axel to make a cart, so I could try to kill myself going down the hill!

[sweet sawdust]

Interesting idea. How would you crown or taper the wheels to accept the saw blade? My first thought is to used wooden inserts to fill in the rim of the wheel and then use a lathe to cut the proper crown or taper.

[Father Haskell]

They already come crowned. Fine-tune the crown by changing tire width or with a pump.

[Joe Gorman]

A little late, but I've been out for a few days alltheweb.com has a few hits

[sweet sawdust]

of street tires but still there. Then there's the problem of tire pressure when you tension the blade. It looks to me like the pressure applied to tension the blade would cause a deformity in the tire and change the tracking of the blade. Wear on the tire should be slight so that wouldn't be a problem. You have almost gotten me in the mood to try to make one

[J T]

Fri, Apr 27, 2007, 9:58am (EDT-3) [e-mail] (Father=A0Haskell) doth sayeth: Pretty. How would spoked bike wheels work instead of those plywood discs? A stripped bike would probably yield all the parts needed for a multi-speed bandsaw except for blade. Google turns up nothing for "walking beam saw."

I haven't really being paying attention. But I've seen a couple of other plans for homemade bandsaws, and I have seen one using bike wheels. If I recall right, they used rubberbands, cut from the tubes, around the inside of the wheels. Supposedly that worked fine. I've seen plans for bandsaw mills that used golf kart rims, or similar, and I guess they work fine.

As soon as I saw "walking beam saw" I knew what you meant. Don't recall if I've heard them called that (maybe rocking beam), but Fine Woodworking had plans for one long ago (plans for a wooden bandsaw too). =

There's plans for parallel arm scroll saws out there. Might be able to scale them up, for a larger blade, if you can't find plans for a 'walking beam saw'.

JOAT If you don't ask the right questions, the answers don't matter.

- W.S. Lind